HubSpot's CMS Hub: Get full control of your website management

WordPress, Shopify, Joomla. We often hear about content management systems (CMS), but what do they do for your business?

A CMS is a software that helps its users with the creation, management and modification of their content on a website or blog, without the need for technical knowledge. HubSpot, a marketing automation platform, also provides a management software: the Hub CMS with the vision of simplifying the support of content management systems (CMS) currently found on the market. Their ambitious bet was to make life easier for all actors in contact with the tool, be it developers or anyone interacting with the CMS, while offering a better experience to website visitors.

Hosting and setup

CMS Hub includes premium hosting and security features in its plans. So, it's not necessary to access multiple sites or interfaces to do your website administration. Since the CMS is hosted in a cloud, there is no system update work to be done either; HubSpot's team of engineers manages the updates themselves without interruption to your website. Then you don't need to worry about your website not being technologically up to date.

Basic features

Unlike other content management systems, the CMS Hub includes multilingual content creation, SEO recommendations, form and call-to-action creation as well as analytics/data of your site by default. You won't need to add extensions or connect tools to get these elements. In fact, since the CMS is integrated with HubSpot's CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, you'll have even more information and data at your fingertips. Conversation tools, such as team email addresses and chatbots, are there to help you engage with your customers and prospects.

Content editing and customization

When it comes to creating a web page, what you want above all is to keep it simple. Whether you're using a default theme or one purchased from HubSpot's Marketplace, your pages will be assembled using the drag and drop editor. The editor, as seen below, allows you to easily edit your content as well as see your changes in real time. The trend that has been gaining momentum in recent years is to create personalized content for each visitor based on their profile. For example, a university's website could present different content to an active student versus a potential student. How can this be done? Based on their past interactions with the site. This is an undeniable advantage that HubSpot's new CMS Hub enables.

Once your page is finished, you can see a preview of the page on different device sizes: computer, tablet and mobile.

This will ensure that your site represents what you want to say. Afterwards, HubSpot identifies issues in your SEO (if any), then explains and suggests how to fix them. So you have a good tool to help you with your SEO while keeping your autonomy.

Themes

As mentioned before, no one likes to be dependent on a developer (whose availability is rarely at the exact moment you need it). With the CMS Hub, it is possible to change, in a few clicks, the color of a background, add an event, and more.

In fact, the default themes offered in the CMS Hub include modules and CSS files that a developer can customize to create a user-friendly content editing experience for your company's marketers. HubSpot provides a range of themes for you to choose from. On the other hand, if you prefer a higher level of customization, a developer can create templates to match your specific requests. Once you have your theme, you can easily modify your entire website without the help of a third party. You are therefore much more independent in managing and updating your website.

Editing pages with drag and drop

If you've ever created a website page, you know how difficult it is to get the page to look exactly the way you want it to. A column may be too narrow, or you may need to add a call to action where there wasn't one before. In the past, this meant updating your page template, which meant that every page using that template was affected, which was not ideal if you only had one page to change.

On all new pages built using themes, you will be able to edit the content of your page with a simple drag and drop. The changes will only impact that page: you can make every page on your entire site look exactly the way you want it to, without having to create a new template for each iteration of the page.

CMS Hub vs. a traditional CMS:

Managing a website can be a pain at times. What we notice, when we are mandated for a website redesign, is that our clients are concerned about the security and performance of their website (with good reason). We are called upon to redesign sites that have hardly evolved with the growth of the companies that approach us. Sometimes, the content has even remained static for years, because there is no easy way to keep it up to date. This is especially true when the old site was programmed with a proprietary CMS from a third party agency, which makes a simple change dependent on a developer. The CMS Hub provides a secure environment from the start, and makes it easy to create and modify content so you can easily do it yourself.

In short, the CMS Hub offers a wide range of features and management tools that give you full control over changes, making you autonomous and less dependent on developers, all in one platform: HubSpot.

It is a wise choice for companies that want to take back control of their website. Do not hesitate to contact us with your questions or to find out which HubSpot CMS Hub Plan will benefit you the most. As a HubSpot Partner, we are available to do a HubSpot implementation and coaching with you.

There are many other reasons to use the HubSpot CRM platform and its 5 hubs. In fact, you can check out our article that mentions the 40 reasons to adopt this CRM platform.